Junkie: The Junkyard Console Alternative [Done]

[Suika]

If there's one thing I hate about "Console Killer" computers is that they're piss weak and give me a reason to hate the concept of switching from a console to a PC. I'm an enthusiast, if I have to run a Pentium or an Athlon, I have much greater problems on my hand than killing a console. That said, this build is for a client, and I told her that she has two options: used parts getting as low as $350-400 with a real kick behind it, or new, sub par parts starting at $500-550. She wants to run used parts, but I'll be keeping some parts new due to a lack of supply or lack of trust behind them.
 

The Plan
 

• FX-8350 at stock settings. I really wanted an i5-2500k, but the guy I woulda have been buying from couldn't meet me in the middle, so it was more worth it to grab the 8350.
• I'm going to see if I can run the stock CPU fan and overclock a little. The guy said he had one with an aluminum core and one with a copper core, I really hope he has the copper one.
• ASUS M5A99FX - Bundle with CPU. It works well and will allow room for overclocking, but I highly doubt my client would overclock. At least she gets a quality motherboard.
• 8GB DDR3 - Undecided on the brand or kind of kit. I may have to buy the RAM new, I'm not finding very many deals on it that justify going to used parts. I'm eyeballing a kit on eBay for $30, but if it goes higher than $40, I'm out.
• I'm going to see if I can grab a 1TB HDD for $40, which doesn't seem so hard anymore. My client was particularly impressed by the fact that I could squeeze a 1TB drive in, but there's a reason she came to me for building a PC.
• GTX 680  - A 680 in a $400 build!? Yea. I'm actually really thrilled I could grab this for only $140, since a 660 Ti still sells for $110 something.
• Zalman Z11 Plus - Bundle with CPU. It's an OK case, larger than I want in a case, but it works.
• EVGA 500B - I might be able to grab this for $30, and I hope I can.

Budget Limit: $420

I opted for $420 to include peripherals with a $400 build, but my client said she had peripherals, so... Let's buy something slightly more expensive!

Pictures and log!

Day 1: So I've been flirting talking to two guys, one with a GTX 680 and the other with the i5-2500k/MoBo/Case. I can pick up both for $140 each. The guy with a GTX 680 actually offered me a 560 Ti as a PhysX card for an additional $35, but I asked him if he'd go for $25 (the 560 Ti is coming outta MY pocket). He took it so I'm going to try and sell it. I really really really lucked out on the i5 bundle, though, I just wish I got an aftermarket cooler with it. It's not my build so I'm fine with leaving it a 2500k at stock, I just wish I could have gotten a good OC on it.

 

I contacted a guy with the EVGA 500B in "like new" condition, asking him if he can go with $30, even though he's asking for $40. Even if he says no, I'll grab it, because I can't find a better power supply for cheaper.

 

I also ordered some IC Diamond, I'm going to see if I can clean up the GPU and get some good overclocks on it, and see how it would fare in a benchmark against my 780. Probably not very well, but I'm running a $1,300 machine, and I'm building a $400 junkyard rig, so it would be a fun comparison. This is a single fan GPU from EVGA, though, so I can't go too crazy without making it obnoxiously loud.

 

Oh, and first problem. Case comes with NO FANS. Hopefully I have a couple spare Corsair fans from my C70, I can't find any to buy on Craigslist, so... Yay!

 

Day 2: I ordered the HDD, RAM, and IC Diamond on Amazon, seriously I'm not buying an HDD used, and nobody sells RAM for a reasonable price, it's more worth it to go new. I should have everything on order or the sellers waiting, so it's just a matter of delivery or when I can grab the parts.

 

I'm also at $410, not including the IC Diamond, that's for me.

 

Day 3: So the i5-2500k didn't come through, the guy couldn't meet in the middle even though he approached me with it. I decided to go with an FX-8350 and ASUS M5A99FX for the same price. I don't like the 8350, especially for this build, but honestly it's better than a brand new Pentium imo. Not enough people in Missouri sell computer parts.

 

Day 4: I have things all built and got some test benchmarks out of the way, for stability's sake. I also benchmarked my own system to figure out that my PSU is dying a horrible death, the quality has deteriorated since the time I've purchased it nearly two years ago. It's a good thing I built Junkie, because I might have figured out about my PSU too late.

 

I'm still missing the HDD, which is DUMB because I ordered it with the IC Diamond A WEEK AGO, and I got the IC Diamond like two days after ordering it, and the HDD isn't here.

 

Day 5: I got the HDD today... so it's time to get my money!

 

I have some images!

 

 

Wiring is a mess, but that's expected with a non-modular power supply.

 

[MuffinTopMike]

YES! People need to realize that you can get some great deals on used parts that outperform any low end part that is new. The used PC part market is huge yet only a very small percentage of people actually consider using pre owned components in budget builds.

[VioDuskar]

i've got 2x gtx560 Tis and a single gtx560 if you're interested. 150 for all three, or 100 for both my ti's?

[Suika]

i've got 2x gtx560 Tis and a single gtx560 if you're interested. 150 for all three, or 100 for both my ti's?

Uhh... No thanks. I'm actually going to sell my soon-to-be-acquired 560 Ti, I don't want any more.

[VioDuskar]

Uhh... No thanks. I'm actually going to sell my soon-to-be-acquired 560 Ti, I don't want any more.

well, bang for buck, you could use two in SLI if that board supports it. and it'd be more cost effective.

[arnavvr]

Uhh... No thanks. I'm actually going to sell my soon-to-be-acquired 560 Ti, I don't want any more.

 

3-way SLI 560Ti Benchmarks would be awesome!

[Suika]

 

It came in absolutely perfect condition, as the guy advertised. Not as lucky of a buy as I'd hope for a power supply, but $30 for a good PSU? I'm not complaining.

 

Other things I bought today...

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately these three are brand new, but I didn't want to take a risk with the hard drive, and nobody sells DDR3.

[Suika]

The GTX 680 came in... absolutely perfect condition! If I didn't know any better, I'd say the dude bought it, stored it, and then sold it to me, all of the little plastic stickers and rubber thingies are all there, I'm quite honestly amazed with the quality of a used product.

 

Here's some pr0n shots for those who want to see how wonderful it came out...

 

 

I'm upset that the one sticker is bent, but oh well, I like the white one more anyway.

 

I also got the 560 Ti, which is almost irrelevant to this build. I got it for $25 and it's the 448 edition, I'm a bit stunned I got it for that price, it's quite the treat, really. These pictures will be in spoilers.

 

[Dschulz72]

Nice! I'm building my own cheap rig out of used parts right now. I've got a dell precision T3500 I'm upgrading to play a few games when I don't feel like programming. Starting with a Xeon quad core at 2.66 GHz with 4 GB RAM, quadro GFX at $180. Upgrading to Xeon at 2.93 GHz, 8 GB RAM and HD 7970. I'm anticipating around $450 total. Used parts can pack a wallop.

[iHardware Shelden]

Nice! I'm building my own cheap rig out of used parts right now. I've got a dell precision T3500 I'm upgrading to play a few games when I don't feel like programming. Starting with a Xeon quad core at 2.66 GHz with 4 GB RAM, quadro GFX at $180. Upgrading to Xeon at 2.93 GHz, 8 GB RAM and HD 7970. I'm anticipating around $450 total. Used parts can pack a wallop.

I love those systems, need to get one since I have some ecc ddr2 to use in one.

[arvark]

Very nice. I'm doing something similar too. I chose the same case.

[Suika]

Sorry for the late updates! So the dude with the 2500k is... really reluctant to meeting up halfway, and there's no way in hell I could justify driving three hours for marginally better components than what I have. I may have to try and stick to using an FX-8350, the primary reason I'm reluctant is that the client wants to play LoL, WoW, and Dota more than FPS games, so single threaded performance is more important.

 

Hopefully the bottleneck isn't that severe... But hey! Now that I'll have two full builds, I can make side by side comparisons of an 8350 and an i7-4790k/i5-4690k/i5-4440 while I prepare the rig.

 

Still waiting on a hard drive if I go with the 8350, which is dumb because I ordered the hard drive with the RAM and IC Diamond, both of which I have in already.

[arvark]

Well, IMO, if you ordered everything for the 2500K, go for it. Yes, 3 hours is a lot of time but you gotta do what you gotta do.

[Suika]

Well, IMO, if you ordered everything for the 2500K, go for it. Yes, 3 hours is a lot of time but you gotta do what you gotta do.

If this were a personal build for me, I'd go ahead, but it really isn't for me, and my schedule is always packed, so I can justify using the old 8350 I have.

 

The next time I may be able to grab the part might be next Sunday, and I meant to have it done today.

[arvark]

Well, then go and give her/him the 8350. BTW wouldn't you also need a case since the Z11 is a bundle with the CPU?

[Suika]

I got mah hard drive today, but I'm at school so there's like 0 things I can do right now. Once I get home, I'll put it together, benchmark it, and post pictures. 

 

The Zalman Z11 Plus is actually a smaller working environment than I remember, but I'm used to a Corsair Vengeance C70 now so idk. It has some annoying features and only two places for an SSD, the 3.5" bays don't double as 2.5" bays. The one 2.5" bay that's in the 5.25" bays is actually a bitch to remove if you have the motherboard installed. I'm certain some motherboards would actually render the bay completely impossible to remove, but I managed to squeeze mine out. Just to note for others.

[arvark]

Wasn't the case a bundle with CPU and mobo?

[Suika]

Because I can't find a case by itself, I just used my old one. It's missing a surprising amount of parts which is why I didn't want to use it from the start. I salvaged a lot of parts from my C70 for it...

[SIGSEGV]

Lol, 420 dollars

[Suika]

For those who'd like to see it... I have her done (mostly)! I'm installing Windows 7 and the essentials, and I'm done!  It hasn't been a fun ride, and there are a couple things I would do differently if I could (get a case with no missing parts, go Intel, etc), but Junkie is built and ready to game.

 

 

Wiring is a mess, but that's expected with a non-modular power supply.

 

 

And I'm missing a cover for the 5.25" bay. Originally I was going to pick up a full Zalman Z11 case, but ended up having to use my old one. I decided to use my own and give myself $10 for it because I'm missing so many parts, but I managed to find enough scraps to put something together.

 

And as per the FX-8350 bottlenecking... yea, it does, pretty harshly too. The i5-4440 (I disabled HT and downclocked my i7 to simulate it) can run a 780 at 100%, but the FX-8350 runs a GTX 680 at 80% in the mixed 3DMark test. That's unfortunate.

 

Here's the 8350 and GPU usage on the mixed test.

 

And here's my simulated i5-4440 on the same test, with a GTX 780 (a much more powerful GPU).

 

The fact that the GTX 680 can't run at 100% and the 780 can, in the same test, doesn't exactly speak well of the 8350.

 

The price difference between the i5 and 8350? $5.